Lucent moved swiftly down the hallway, alert for anything out of the ordinary.
He didnt bother trying to sneak around or cling to shadows, knowing
that the bases internal sensors were keyed to that sort of anomalous
motion. Instead, he acted as if this was exactly where he was supposed to
be, hoping that the base Bots would assume him to be a programmer or
messengerrelying on their assumption that no human could be a soldier.
Well, they would soon learn their mistake.

He passed through a door marked, For authorized use only. Warning:
This room is defended by R-series battle Bots. Enter at your own
risk. His Advisorcom unit buzzed in his ear. It said, I compute
only a thirty-four percent chance of successfully taking the plans.
Of course, the Advisorcom didnt actually speak to himwith the
sensitive sound monitors in the base that would have been fatal. Instead,
Advisorcom communicated through a direct neural link-up into his brain. However,
in order to keep it clear where his thoughts ended and its began, it was
somehow wired to trick his brain into thinking he heard a voiceusually
it sounded something like his commander, General Robo.

Lucent thought back to the Adcom, Shut up, you. This is going
to work. Besides, the plans are only half the point, you stupid machine.
Look, heres a computer-access. Now, we just plug in the Generals
program andvoila! One set of Arris Dome attack plans. See, told you
this would work. As Lucent removed the disk with the plans, an alarm
began to buzz. A dozen alcoves lining the walls of the room snapped open,
and a team of robots stepped out, weapons at the ready.

Attention, trespassing human. You are in a restricted area. Please
leave immediately, or we will have to remove you, intoned one of the
robots mechanically.

Lucent smiled, and raised his hands. Of course, he said to himself, no human
would ever dream of doing something so vulgar, so mechanical as fighting
back. Never! As he was thinking this, he caught two robots with a roundhouse
kick, sending them flying into the wall. He added a few well placed punches,
forcing the robots back far enough that he could get out his burst rifle.
The rifle had been a present from Belthazar on Lucents fifteenth birthday,
four years ago, and, Belthazar claimed, had been built by the great Melchior
himself. Regardless, it was quite a weaponthe energy blasts it fired
pierced the robots shields like butter, then exploded inside them,
creating quite impressive blast craters in their chests. Within a minute,
all twelve robots were lying on the ground, bits of themselves strewn all
over the place.

Dont get cocky, Lucent, his com told him.
Theres more on the way. And scans indicate the door has
locked.

Lucent shrugged. Then, putting away his rifle, he pulled out a strange weapon,
something like an unholy hybrid of a sword and a chain sawa short,
swordlike-hilt, with a long, thin, chainsaw-style blade. Lucent flicked it
on with a whirring noise, and neatly sliced a hole through the inch-thick
steel door. Just down the hall, he saw about fifty robots of every time,
barrelling at top speed towards him. Well, com, we seem to have
gotten their attention.

Lucent ran for the Dome exit, ducking and dodging through corridors as more
and more robots came in to chase him. Finally, he reached the large chamber
just inside the entrance. As he approached the exit, he slipped his hands
into his pockets, pulling on a pair of gloves. Just before he reached the
massive siege doors, they closed, sealing him in. He came to a sudden halt
right in front of the door, and then sprang straight up. As he did, the
pressure-sensitive explosive he had left where the main doors could crush
it blew.

And Death walked in.

Using his magnetic gloves to cling to the ceiling, Lucent watched as massive
electrical discharges and laser blasts ripped through the enemy robots. At
the center of this deadly whirlwind was General Robo, the most powerful robot
in the world. Against this deadly onslaught, the enemy fell back, but then,
realizing that even Robo was no match for their numbers on his own, regrouped
and charged. They were met by the combined force of the Guardian army, the
Bots of the Square Table, plus a part of the armies of Trann and Bangor
Domes. They waded in, packed too closely for weapons other than fists.

Lucent bided his time carefully, waiting for when a group of robots had sneaked
up closely enough behind Robo that they would be unable to break their attention
away from him quickly enough, and dropped, twisting in midair and flipping
on his chain sword. All four robots were neatly bisected in the first stroke,
and Lucent pushed on. Finally, about five hours later, the battle was over.
The remaining enemy robots had been either captured or forced out of the
base, and now clean-up squads were sweeping the base for any robots that
had been missed, and any human workers to be sent home to Arris Dome.

Exhausted, Lucent slumped against the wall, and closed his eyes as he talked
to Robo. You know, sometimes I wish I were like youId never
get tired, for one thing.

I mean Im going to get a processor upgrade. Im old
enougholder than enough. I had four hundred years of happiness, and
peace, and I thought I could come back here after Lavos was destroyed, and
go back to that. Instead Ten years of unending war, as commander of
the Bots of the Square. Theres no enemy any more, there hasnt
been since we killed Lavos in 1999, but humans still fight! Why?

Robo, you cant get an upgrade! Any other robot, we would just
transfer the programs, but with you

I would be killed. I know. That is the point, Lucent. In the
evil 2300 Robo had come from, Lucca had repaired Robo, not knowing that he
was a plant, intended to reveal her actions to Lavos ally, the Mother
Brain of the R-Y factory. Lucca had, in her ignorance of robot design, made
a single, critical mistake: one wire, a fraction of a millimeter too long,
had set up a complicated electromagnetic resonance in Robos computer
brain. The resonance had interfered with his circuits, creating dozens of
short circuits and new pathways. Robos processor speed had slowed to
a crawl, almost as slow as a human brain, but his complexity had increased
tremendously, causing him to break through into true intelligence, even though
his brain was far smaller than the giant Brains which controlled the other
robots. The change had rendered him incompatible with the Mother Brain, freeing
him from her control, and, lacking guidance, had turned to imitating the
humans around him. He had gained human emotions and personality from them,
even as he slowly relearned the capabilities of his body, which the Mother
Brain had built to be the ultimate weapon against humanity. Unfortunately,
the accident which turned R66-Y into Robo was irreproducible, and so anything
which changed his processors would turn him into a drone, like the other
robots. Im tired, Lucent. Im hundreds of years old, and
Ive spent too much of that time fighting. I want to end it.

Robo, you cant die! Guardia needs you!

I cant live, either, Lucent. Theres no place for me in
this world but as a fighter, and I dont want to do that anymore.

All right, Ill find you a new place!

Robo looked at him. What?

Lucent smiled. I was going to tell you. Im planning to leave
the army. Ive realized that those robots will kill me, if given the
chancebecause Im a fighter. Besides, Ive finished the reason
I came here. Im finally strong enough to go look for him.

Vincent That would be something new. A quest, looking for your
poor lost brother Very well, Lucent. I will help you find your brother.
And maybe, along the way, Ill find somewhere to rest, too.

.

One thousand seven hundred years before Lucent and Robo set off, Frog tossed
in his sleep. He was dreaming of a day long ago, when he had met me for the
third time (or the first, depending on how you looked at it). Frog had stood
on the cliff over the North Cape, furious at my words, Hes history.
Play with fire and you get burned.

Frog had ordered his friends back, and drawn the Masamune. I had asked if
he wanted to fight, and hed answered by attempting to remove my head.
Our battle had been furious, vicious, me fending off the Masamune with a
scythe, magical spells hurtling back and forth. Finally, though, Frog had
won, because he had healing magic and I did not. He forced me to the ground
and held the Masamune to my neck.

Finish it, Id gasped. I cant defeat LavosI
cant even defeat you, you pitiful frog. Kill me, and you will remove
the curse I laid on you 

Hed paused, fury and something else warring on his ugly
green face. Killing thee will bring nor Crono neither Cyrus back.
So saying, hed backed away, sheathed the Masamune, and turned to go,
surrendering his only chance to be human again for what?

Frog woke slowly, stretching, remembering his adventures through time. He
often wondered why he had saved me, knowing that he and the others would
have been killed by Zeal otherwise, and that Lavos would never have been
destroyedwhat he didnt know, what he needed to know was why he
had saved me at that moment, what he could possibly have realized.

Dismissing such thoughts from his mind, he wondered idly what there would
be to do that day. As he got out of bed, he noticed something odd out of
the corner of his eye, something in the mirror in his bedroomand then
it struck him like a ton of bricks.

He was human!

My words replayed across his mind. Kill me, and you will remove the
curse 

He is dead, Frog said quietly. The Magus is finally dead.
And I am Glenn once more.

Glenn hurried downstairs, seeking the King and Queen. He found them in the
throne room, preparing for a normal day of royal business. Queen Leene gasped
when she saw him. Glenn! What has happened?

I do not know, mlady. There is only one explanationthat
the Magus is dead.

King Guardia frowned. The Magus was a worthy foe, and you have told
us of his courage in battling Lavos. What, now that Lavos is gone, could
have killed him?

I know not, Your Majesty. Still, thou art not entirely correct. Lavos
is not perished yet, nor will it be for more than a thousand years. Nonetheless,
I doubt the Magus has perished because of it. Methinks there be another force
at work here.

Agreed, said King Guardia. However, as there could be no
one other than Lavos who wished the Magus harm, we must assume this is somehow
connected with that creature. Sir Glenn, I want you to assemble a party and
check out Magus island. See if you can find anything, and then report
back here.

The next morning, Glenn set out with five of the best Knights of the Square
Table and six squires, boys apprenticed to the knights. The squires were
all awed by Glenns presence, and more than once he was asked if he
had singlehandedly slain the Magus. He answered all the squires the same
way, At our first meeting, the Magus was triumphant, slaying Cyrus,
breaking the Masamune, and turning me into Frog. At our second, I and my
allies defeated the Magus with the reforged, improved Masamunebut we
were separated by Lavos before I could slay him. And at our third meeting,
I faced him alone, and had him at my mercyand I spared his life.

But why? they always asked.

And he always answered the same way. I know not. However, I now know
that it was the proper choice to make, for without his help the foul Lavos
would have destroyed the world, centuries hence. For he and I, together with
four others, followed the great Crono to glory, and slew the foul Lavos.
And the Magusthe Magus is a cruel, evil man, but he has his reasons,
and having seen them, I can accept that there was no other person he could
be and still survive.

Eventually, after a hard days travel, the little party stopped at Dorino
for the night. While there, the squires were entertained by the village
storyteller while the knights sat about swapping dirty jokes. Remembering
what he had seen of Zeals military and the future army of Guardia,
Glenn reflected that soldiers were much the same in any time. He then turned
to see what the squires were doing, and found them enthralled by a very
exaggerated tale of Cyrus journeys in the Denadoro mountains. Glenn
suddenly froze, and then asked the storyteller a question.

What? asked the old storyteller.

I asked why the Magus was in Denadoro in the first place? Cyrus and
I went there because we wrongly believed that that was where the secret passage
to the Magus island was. But why was he there?

I believe I can answer that, said a new voice.

Glenn looked up. For the first time, he realized that there was a large group
of people standing around the storytellers circle in the fields outside
of town. One of them had just spoken, an intense-seeming young man. Who
art thou? Glenn asked.

My name is Vincent. I am in Dorino on something of an extended
vacation.

And what is it thou doth claim to know?

Whats going on in Denadoro, and why Janus went there.

Glenn went very still at this mentioning of the Magus real name. And
what, pray tell, might that be? he said, struggling not to reveal his
reaction.

.

Robo and Lucent stood at the entrance to Arris Dome, shocked at the spectacle
of destruction which greeted them. Robos gaze was entirely fixed on
a pink robot lying smashed against the wall, someone he had known in another
lifetime as Atropos. Lucent meanwhile, went from blackened corpse to blackened
corpse, driven by some morbid desire to see them, his first encounter with
dead humans.

One of the bodies shifted slightly, and groaned. Lucent rushed up to it.
Doan, is that you?

Doan coughed. Lucent  he gasped.

Doan, who did this to you?

Norn the Omens they must be stopped 

The Omens? But theyre just Doan? Doan! After a moment,
Lucent stood from Doans body. How could the Omens have
done this? Theyre just a little cult, totally harmless 

Obviously, they are not as harmless as we thought.

Killing of humans! That hasnt been done since the
nineteen-nineties?

Earlier. After the Great War of the nineteen-teens, the World League
was founded. Another war wasnt fought until after the Rise of Lavos
in 1999, when the people realized that they might have been able to fight
Lavos without our help, if theyd still had weapons. So they began building
robot armies and staging wars between them as testsand eventually began
to bet on the outcomes, until the point that entire Domes could be one or
lost over a single robot battle. And so modern war was born

Robo! Wake up! This isnt a time for lectures; we have to do
something!

I apologize, Lucent. I am a machine, though, you know. Nonetheless,
I agree. We must bring an army to bear on the Omens immediately. Let us go
and collect the Bots of the Square Table, and then I will fight
one last time.

.

Vincent smiled slightly. The reason Janus was in Denadoro is because
thats where the Omen is.

Not

No, foolish Frog, not that Omen, although the Black Omen is part of
it. Many things are a part of it, though, and more is incorporated every
day as the Good Omen grows until the day comes.

What day?

Vincent smiled again, and said, Enter the mountains from the east.
Take the left fork on the path, and lift the bush to the north of the twisted
tree. That will take you to the tunnel that leads to the Project. Youll
meet the Omens there.

.

Back in his house, Vincent stood in the darkness. And youre sure
they will be travelling to the Project tomorrow? asked a voice from
the darkness.

I am certain, Master. They should reach the Project by noon
tomorrow.

Excellent, Vincent. And have you any news, Brother?

Indeed I have, Brother, said a second voice in the dark. The
robot and the human weakling are gathering an army to assault the Omens,
even as the frog and his band do the same.

And I also have news, Brothers, said a third voice. The
little brat has been rendered ineffective, and the meddling boy and his friend
are even now preparing an assault on the Mystics.

A new voice spoke, one Vincent had never heard before, one that filled him
with fear. It was a monstrously evil voice, cruel, wicked, and somehow slightly
feminine in its quiet, yet ultimate, power. It was a voice, he thought, that
sounded as if it could do more evil in a single afternoon than he could ever
do in a lifetime. What it said was chillingly simple, in contrast to the
complexity of the voice: Excellent, children. Now, we can simply wait
for them to come to us. And then, they will be destroyed.